This is my personal blog. I was Branch Secretary of Lambeth UNISON from 1992 to 2017 and a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of UNISON, the public service union (www.unison.org.uk) from 2003 to 2017.
I am Chair of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour Party and of the Sussex Labour Representation Committee (LRC).
Neither the Labour Party nor UNISON is responsible for the contents of this personal blog. (Nor is my employer!)

I can assure
you that this is not the case. I can also assure all readers that I do know a
bit about the
relevant law.

I chose when
to become a Branch Secretary and shall now (for the third time) choose when not
to be. I joined our National Executive at a time of my choosing and shall now leave
at a time of my choosing (and shall support Sean Fox of the Haringey branch
to stand in my place because he is far and away the best candidate).

I remain
completely committed to the transformation of UNISON into the trade union which
we wanted it to be when we voted it into existence in 1992 – and to that end am
pleased to publish the following information received today from Glen Williams
on behalf of the new UNISONaction Broad Left;

UNISONaction
broad left Meetings have taken place across the UK and it is very clear
that there is a growing determination amongst our activists to raise the
profile and activity of our union.

UNISONaction
operate a total transparency policy and so please find below the details of the
lead coordinators for the UNISON Regions who are getting organised with further
regional details to follow. If you want to find out what is happening in your
Region and where UNISONaction is up to please email the Regional Lead
identified below. If your Region is not represented yet please feel free to
email Glen Williams (see below).

These, generally anonymous infiltrators into our
movement believe
that it is “a decade of intense
migration with approaching a million from the new European Union states coming
to look for work in Britain” rather than a decade of Government failing to
invest in our public services that “has
had a debilitating effect on schools, housing and medical services.” This
faulty analysis would embarrass a student of GCSE politics (never mind a
student of Marx), but is commonplace amongst people who describe themselves as “Communist” (!)

It is not
therefore a surprise, given their inability to comprehend the world around them
that these so-called
Marxistsconclude
that since “mass migration provides a
potentially limitless reserve army of the unemployed to undermine workers’
organisation, pay and conditions built up over centuries by the working class
here” it is therefore important that “our
resistance to this begins with the fight to leave the EU.” It is shameful
that anonymous labour movement functionaries who try to associate
their politics with Fidel Castro, a true hero of our class, should peddle
such nationalist and racist nonsense.

This blog
has from
time to time
made observations
about the (and honestly this is not a joke name) Communist Party of Britain
(Marxist-Leninist) which is now little more than an apolitical freemasonry of
the labour movement bureaucracy (with a sideline in reactionary
British nationalism).

It is interesting to read of a trade union in which an
attempt was made to ban paid officials from standing for the position of
General Secretary.

And worth noting that the Certification Officer can
exercise their power to order a rerun of an election (as they have in a recent
case involving UNITE, albeit in that case the Union conceded the breach of
their rules).

The official
racism which legitimates, but never satisfies, right-wing populism is as happy
scapegoating white “foreigners” as black (perhaps nearly as happy?) Bigotry is
simple and straightforward (and all too
common). For socialists trying to work out how to respond to these
darkening days these are, however, confusing times.

I know that
there would be great value in a united response to the resurgent forces of
reaction and the far right (and I am inclined to be present outside the Supreme
Court on Monday even if it is true that Farage
has called off his attempt to
beMussolini).

I do not
know the answer to these questions, but I do know that we will not succeed on
the basis of simply ignoring these divisions. As urgent as is the task of
uniting against our adversaries an even more urgent task is to understand what
we face and to respond on the basis of principles.

We must
start from a position of socialist internationalism, of unyielding support for
equality and opposition to racism and imperialism. These principles we cannot
compromise if we are to be useful in dealing with the rising tide of racism and
reaction nationally and globally.

What is also
not surprising, but perhaps more disappointing, is the response of many who
consider themselves to be part of “the left”, at least here in the UK.

Even on the
day that we learned of Castro’s death, many people had to qualify any comment
by remembering the things that they (from their sofa
in Islington) disagreed with Castro about.

I suppose I
have been shedding illusions in “Trotskyism” ever since the fall of the wall,
but petty sniping at the track record of Socialist Cuba at this time forces me
to conclude that I am no part of that “left”.

That is not
to say that I, or anyone, should be starry-eyed about Castro, or any leader.
The last thing the left needs, as should be increasingly obvious, is fan-clubs.

However,
politics is very often about choosing sides – and if we are going to defeat the
forces of reaction who are now rampant in Europe
and the United
States we have to be as clear and straightforward as our opponents.

It is a
strength which the socialist left has inherited from liberalism that we are
critical and questioning – but it can be a terrible weakness when we put these
valuable traits to
the fore at all times, when sometimes we need to be firm in support of our
side.

Yesterday,
elements of the Western left exhibited also the Euro-centrism which very much
gets in the way of “thinking globally” whilst “acting locally”.

Criticism of
historic
errors by Cuba in dealing with the rights
of LGBT people should be part of a balanced and comprehensive assessment of
the Cuban revolution, as should commentary upon authoritarian tendencies common
to post-revolutionary regimes.

It is
however, risible, for UK leftists to put such criticism front and centre of
brief responses to the death of a great revolutionary leader, whilst seemingly
ignoring the role of our own country in exporting official homophobia to the Caribbean
(where surely other islands closer to “our”
influence have more questions to answer?)

Those who consider
themselves socialists, but who are so very wise that their understanding of the
dangers of “campism” means that they qualify and nuance every word when asked
to choose between two sides demonstrate the weakness which is likely to lead to
our defeat by the coming rightwing tide.

That they
also allow their great wisdom to obscure a truly global assessment of a
revolutionary leader who gave so
much to Africa
and the Caribbean suggests that elements of the European “left” will contribute
their share of responsibility for what our continent (and its transatlantic
diaspora) may once more be about to unleash upon humanity.

I don’t want
to contribute in any way to dividing the opponents of the rampaging resurgent
right, but I don’t think we can build unity on shifting sands.

I don’t know
what to do – but I am at least thinking about this without false certainty.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

I spent some
time yesterday arguing with two old friends who will not I hope be offended if
I say we disagreed because I felt they were in denial about aspects of the
current political situation whereas they felt that I (and a like-minded
comrade) were exaggerating.

Regular
readers of this blog may not be sure they agree, but I used to be someone who
was particularly prone to measured and cautious
expressions of opinion as I tried to persuade interlocutors. I genuinely was
not given to exaggeration – before this year I would sarcastically have
dismissed someone saying that democracy is at serious and immediate risk in the
advanced capitalist nations (albeit it had been massively weakened by the
growing power of corporations against states).

I think that
2016 has shown all of us that we were wrong. I know I was. I did not foresee
that a combination of bigotry and stupidity would lead to a vote to leave the
European Union, nor that a similarly toxic mix across the Atlantic would bring
to power a dangerous demagogue. I fear I will not be surprised now if
Austria elects a fascist President, nor even if France
falls.

It is
understandable but it is wrong. It is that bad – and those who choose the wrong
side on vital questions at a dangerous time cannot escape responsibility for
the consequences of their actions.

As we were
having that argument a wise person was asking
pertinent questions; “You know films set
in the 1930s when everyone is pottering on as normal and you want to shout at
the screen? Well, how would you know if you were in one?”

The answer
has to be that you wouldn’t, but that if you even think you might be you have
to be consistent and brave in standing up, in every part of your life, for what
you believe in. I never knew my maternal grandfather (who died of TB in the
50s) but I know he was a mild mannered man – yet in the late 30s he concluded
an argument with a visiting German Nazi by pouring a bucket of water over him.

The vermin
of UKIP and the American “alt-right”
won’t play by any rules in arguing against the beliefs of all democrats and
trying to undermine all in which we believe. Our only rule in response has to
be that we won’t surrender to them. There is no legitimacy in the referendum
result any more than there is legitimacy in the election of “President” Trump.

It is as if events
conspire to remind us that the chapter opened by the October
revolution is now definitively closed. There is no global alternative to
capitalism.

Capital no
longer needs to fend off a threat from a combative working class with social
welfare, civil liberty and democratic rights.

We must hope
that the passing of the great revolutionary does
not destabilise Cuba. That one island can stand for more than half a
century against US imperialism will always be an inspiration to those who
believe in progress whatever happens next, but it will be a further setback if
the Cuban revolution is defeated.

Socialist
Cuba has given so much to the world, and in particular to the peoples of Africa
and the Caribbean (who have often borne the brunt of global capitalism). We
must continue to be inspired by this example and draw courage from the example
of the Cuban people, as from the example of all previous revolutions.

As
socialists we must remember our responsibility both to our class and to the
future of humanity. It may well be that the choice between “socialism and
barbarism” is being made around us in a way we would not support, but this
question is not settled. We have the power to change the world.

If we know
that we are indeed characters in a film set in “Weimar Little England” we have
to stand up now, and every day, to resist bigotry and prejudice, to defend those
under attack and to protect the values of democracy and socialism.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

I can’t
quite believe the content of an email which I have just received from our
General Secretary at just after 5pm this afternoon;

“Dear All,

It is with great sadness that I write
to inform you of the sudden and tragic death of our friend and president, Eric
Roberts.

Eric passed away earlier this
afternoon having been diagnosed with cancer earlier this week. The news
has come as a great shock to us all, but at this sad time our thoughts and our
love are with his family.

Yours,

Dave”

I am updating this post on 25 November to include this
link to the UNISON website where you can read and post tributes to Eric.

Eric was not
a close friend. Indeed he and I often found ourselves on opposing sides of
arguments within our trade union. I would not do the injustice to his memory of
failing to note this.

Eric was,
however, a great trade unionist with a passionate commitment to our movement
and its cause.

I saw this at its very best a couple of years ago when Eric gave a funny, caring and
passionate farewell to another
trade unionist for whom I also had rather more respect than affection, and
of whom I said, as I shall say now of Eric, that he was literally
irreplaceable.

As far as I can recollect, no one has ever asked me to blog
about the history of hearings in front of the Certification Officer involving
UNISON.

But I knew you wanted me to anyway.

So as I get time I’ll remind you of some aspects of the
past of our trade union which are all too easily forgotten.

One of the earliest cases involving UNISON was one in which
our trade union (or at least its leadership) seemed almost to welcome
intervention in its affairs. Nineteen years ago,
the Certification Officer ruled that a donation of £100 made by a UNISON
branch to an appeal in support of the Socialist Worker newspaper had breached
the Union’s political fund rules.

Although by the time the complaint came to be considered
the contested donation had been repaid, and therefore there was no need for any
enforcement order, the Certification Officer did not simply make a declaration
that the political fund rules had been breached but also came to an agreement
with UNISON that this declaration would be publicised by the trade union. And
so it was.

The publication of this decision within UNISON signalled
the start of a sustained attempt to marginalise – and in some cases expel –
activists who were associated with the Socialist Workers Party. At the same
time the Birmingham
and Sheffield
local government branches were taken over (into what we would now call “regional
supervision” but without consultation with Regional lay structures) and there
were a number of contested disciplinary cases – at least one of which found
UNISON being told
to reverse a decision by the Certification Officer.

That disciplinary witch hunt came to an end with the
election of a new General Secretary, who took office for the first time in
January 2001, although its consequences continued to be felt for some time.
Over the subsequent period UNISON’s National Executive sought, through our
Development and Organisation Committee, to impose greater lay scrutiny of some
areas of internal controversy, with regular reporting both of branches under regional
supervision and cases taken to the Certification Officer.

Funnily enough, when, some years later, the Certification
Officer found that much larger sums (£2,184.41 in total) had been spent in
breach of the same political fund rules as had been breached to a much lesser
extent in the earlier case, the union did not volunteer to publicise the decision
as they had in 1997. Indeed no subsequent Certification Officer decision has
ever attracted quite the welcome of that long ago decision about £100 being
sent to the Socialist Worker appeal.

Monday, November 21, 2016

Having told
my branch that I won’t be seeking re-election as Branch Secretary in January,
with a view to having a bit more of a life, I realise that tomorrow morning I
will attend my last meeting of UNISON’s Regional Local Government Committee
after more than twenty years.

More than
nineteen years ago, I was in the pub after a meeting of the Executive of this
august body when I got the phone call that told me I was about to become a
father, so I think of the Regional Local Government Committee as almost family
(and certainly the relatives with whom I would prefer to spend time when
compared with the in-laws of the Regional Committee, at least over the past
decade).

UNISON’s
local government membership is by far the largest part of our trade union both
nationally and regionally, and I have gained an appreciation of both the
strengths and weaknesses of our organisation across London over the past two
decades and more (and have probably contributed at least as much to the latter
as the former).

UNISON was
something of a difficult coming together of the traditions of two of our “former
partner unions” in Greater London local government. In the mid 1990s we would
meet as an Executive in the Conference chamber at Mabledon Place with former
NUPE colleagues on one side of the room and former NALGO colleagues on the
other. After a while the “NUPE” pre-meetings no longer included any paid
officials...

London local
government was something of a centre of opposition, on the part of former NUPE
branch secretaries, to the process of branch merger. As Chair of the Regional
Recruitment and Organisation Committee in 1997 I secured a three month
extension of the deadline for branch mergers in the Region – and we came to
agreements locally in all but three London boroughs (although not before a
walk-out of former NUPE branch secretaries greeted my report to the Regional
Council).

Ironically
Lambeth was the one place where branch merger never really happened, because
UNISON created a separate branch for the members privatised to a joint venture
company early that year, taking the great bulk of the former NUPE membership
away from the “merged” Lambeth branch.

The Regional
officials who ensured for many years that any mention of bringing the two
Lambeth branches together was hastily squashed deserve my personal thanks for
saving me from the work which would then have come my way – and can no doubt
congratulate themselves on having assisted the Lambeth branch to play the very particular
role it has played in UNISON over the past twenty years. (I won’t name names to
save blushes – and also to avoid being hauled up on any
more disciplinary investigations...)

Elsewhere in
London though UNISON branches developed as we had hoped they might when we
voted for merger in 1992 – particularly in those boroughs where some at least
of the manual workforce remained in-house.

Effective
partnership working between lay leadership and officials who respected lay control
also meant that we resolved the contradiction between the goal of single status
and the differential London weighting payments between manual and non-manual
workers. It was a shame that individuals moved on and that productive
partnership came to an end.

Equally unfortunately
our subsequent campaign to increase London Weighting, for which we took strike
action in 2002-03 not only failed to achieve our objective but led to the
employers walking out of the London-level bargaining machinery, collapsing a
joint body which had survived the interregnum in national bargaining before the
second world war.

We learned
that the uneven organisation and militancy of our membership between London
boroughs amounted to an all but insurmountable obstacle in prosecuting a
London-wide dispute. The national disputes in which we have been involved over
the past decade or so have been equally discouraging. Twice we have settled for
reductions in pension benefits, and repeatedly we have failed to defeat pay
restraint imposed upon us by the Government and employers.

In many of
our London branches UNISON activists have been fighting a vigorous rearguard
action for as long as many of us can remember, to protect jobs and conditions
of service from repeated attacks.

Over the
past ten years our attempts to support each other have generally achieved any
success in spite of, rather than because of, the resources of our trade union
at regional level. Perhaps the most extreme example of the unhelpfulness of the
official structures of the union was the deliberate damage done to the
Greenwich branch when it was unjustifiably taken into regional supervision back
in 2010.

The elected
officers of our Regional Service Group Committee have done what they can to try
to assert basic norms of democratic accountability, but it has been an uphill
struggle. I have watched too many good activists worn down by the endless
battles with both employers on the one hand and officials on the other, and
have seen previously independent branches become obedient to those who ought
not to control our lay led trade union.

Thankfully
there are still sufficient London borough UNISON branches under the control of
assertive lay leaders who know what a trade union is for, and with the
Secretaries of two such branches as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Greater London
Regional Local Government Committee we can continue to hope that UNISON may yet
become something of the trade union we voted for in 1992.

It has been
a privilege to attend meetings of our Regional Local Government Committee on
many occasions since vesting day and to have worked alongside those principled
and committed individuals who have chosen to devote themselves voluntarily to
the cause of our members without ambition or hope of personal gain.

I won’t give
up in the face of the reactionary outcome of the advisory referendum on
membership of the EU any more than socialists have ever given up in the face of
the election of Tory (or New Labour) Governments.

It was good
to catch up with old friends and colleagues today at the UNISON Centre (a.k.a. “the
Great
White Elephant of the Euston Road”) for a meeting of the Development and
Organisation (D&O) Committee of the UNISON National Executive Council
(NEC). It’s always good to catch up, and to see people I haven’t seen for a
while.

I’ll blog a
full report when I can find some time away from both branch work and self-inflicted
labour. However, I do want to pass comment on some interesting
contributions to discussion (in the context of debate about our organisation in
schools) arising from the potential merger between the NUT
and ATL
unions.

It is a
shame that, given the current structure of our trade union movement, and the
fact that (without national recognition to negotiate for non-teaching staff in
schools where those staff are covered by the National Joint Council) the ATL
organise teaching assistants, the move to bring together unionised teachers
appears as a threat to UNISON, currently fighting for teaching assistants in Derby
and Durham.

It is ironic
that the position of the three support staff unions in schools (UNISON, GMB and
UNITE), which is that the teaching unions ought not to try to recruit
non-teaching staff in schools, is the exact opposite of our approach in the
rest of local government (where, since adopting single status in 1997, we
advocate vertically integrated trade unions organising all grades).

However, we
are where we are. Trade unionists in our public services are organised in
professional (or occupationally specific) unions (such as the teaching unions,
NAPO, the FBU, the POA and some of the health unions), general unions (GMB and
UNITE), an industrial union for the civil service (PCS) and – most importantly –
in our strange hybrid trade union, which clearly aspires to be an industrial
union in local government, health and higher education but (as some Committee
members have conceded in recent discussions) is evolving in the direction of a
general union.

There are
very few public servants for whom there is only one obvious trade union to join
(a firefighter perhaps). For most of us there are two or more trade unions who
would happily take our subscriptions. Since it is much easier to recruit to a
trade union someone who has already been persuaded of the benefits of trade
unionism, this sets our public services up for an endless cycle of poaching of
members between our unions.

In another
part of our discussions today we touched upon the occasionally aggressive
poaching of UNISON members by the GMB at local level – and were reminded that
attempts to develop
a protocol to encourage cooperation between the two unions was knocked back
some years ago. The often difficult, and yet important, relationship between
UNISON and GMB has been a feature of my years as a branch activist and on our
NEC. The most likely future of this relationship is, regrettably, that cordial
relations at national level will be accompanied by backbiting and mutual
poaching locally. To change this would require leadership which neither union
currently appears to possess.

Another
trade union with which UNISON has had a difficult relationship during my time
on the NEC in spite of the obvious potential for cooperation has been PCS. UNISON
and PCS had signed
an agreement to work together in 2010 but five years later PCS were complaining
to the TUC about UNISON trying to encroach upon their areas of
organisation. There is less direct competition for members between us and
obvious possibilities for joint work between the civil service and other public
services, but UNISON’s evident hostility has in the past driven PCS towards the
possibility of a merger
with far less industrial logic.

Overall
trade union density has fallen over the past twenty years from a third to a
quarter of all workers in the economy – even in the public sector almost half
of workers are not trade unionists. What workers (whether or not yet in a trade
union) need from our movement is a serious attempt to organise the unorganised –
not a movement that is squabbling over the already organised minority.

We might
look to the TUC to provide some unity- but the TUC has historically been weak
in relation to individual trade unions and, as there are fewer, larger unions
so this relative weakness becomes more pronounced. The best chance for our
movement to make a unified attempt to organise (rather than a competitive
attempt to avoid bankruptcy) would be if the leadership of UNISON could lead
that unified attempt.

This was
surely what we had in mind when we created a new public service union from the
former partner unions (NALGO, NUPE and COHSE) back in 1993. We thought we could
overcome one of the greatest rivalries in our movement (between NALGO and NUPE
in local government) – although perhaps all we did was internalise it (as a
struggle between democrats and control freaks).

At any event
we did not think that we had finished the job of uniting public service workers
on 1 July 1993 and yet we have hardly taken a step further.

Even the most
enthusiastic (if anonymous) well-wisher on our union’s twentieth birthday
could say nothing more positive than “steady as she goes”. This was not
something to celebrate in circumstances in which we needed (as we still need)
imaginative leadership committed to changing to meet the challenges of our
future.

Trade union
merger is not necessarily a positive step in meeting those challenges (many
mergers appear
purely defensive and financially driven)
- although mergers which
strengthen the organisational capacity of workers to resist employers have
played and could in future play a positive role.

We may need
to look closely at other means of cooperation between trade unions (such as the
shared legal service between the GMB and
CWU) as options for a future in which we can put such cooperation ahead of
competition.

Instead of
responding to the prospect of professional unity for the teaching profession by
circling our wagons with “competitor” support staff unions and the recalcitrant teaching union we could then
be approaching the teachers with a plan for effective cooperation between trade
unions across the education sector (and all public services).

Our movement
deserves a leadership which can address the challenges we face. UNISON in
particular cannot continue in stasis.

Donald Trump says he will "immediately" deport two to three million people (presumably to Mexico).

No he won't.

He can't and he knows he can't.

Just one million people would fill somewhere between seventeen and twenty thousand coaches.

The simple logistics of transporting so many people would be the work of weeks if not months - and that is if the country to whom the deportees were being despatched cooperated enthusiastically and accepted their responsibility for every one of the (often presumably) undocumented individuals who might or might not be their citizens.

None of this is likely.

Nor does Trump really want this outcome.

The US economy depends in many ways (just as the economy of London does, for example) upon the labour of "illegal immigrants" and upon the opportunities for super-exploitation of workers for whom the ever present threat of deportation is a whip held by employers which can be cracked should those workers ever seek to pursue their own interests (collectively or individually).

Trump no more wants to expel every Latin American cleaner from the USA than our Government wishes to see the back of every African security guard in London. What they both want is that these workers should live lives of perpetual terror, never knowing if they, or their loved ones, will be one of the ‎(relatively small) number who will be picked up and deported from the country they have made their home.

These workers can then be relied upon not to unionise, nor even to demand their legal rights (to the minimum wage for example) and therefore not only to cheapen their own labour (and add to the profits of their immediate employers and/or the "end users" of their labour) but also to depress wages generally at the lower end of the labour market.

This provides not only a general economic benefit for the employers in whose interests Trump (and May) (and Farage) act, but also a material basis for the argument that it is immigrants and immigration which drives down wages. This argument can then be used to rally support for the bigotry of the far right not only amongst those whose living standards are being held down, but also (in the UK) amongst the dunderheaded Parliamentarians on the Labour right who will whine that we must "respect" or "engage with" anti-immigrant prejudice (when in fact what we need to do is confront it and defeat it).

It is easy to criticise "liberal" critiques of the Trump/Brexit right-wing as the "politics of hate" on the grounds that they fail to address the material foundations of prejudice. However, the whipping up of anti-immigrant and anti-immigration hysteria is quintessentially the "politics of hate" as an end in itself - and for thoroughly material reasons to do with the economic interests of the ruling class, every bit as much as the ideological project of the far right.

UNISON has clear policy in support of the rights of migrant workers and we need to campaign for such policies around the world.

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

It relates to the hearing scheduled for: 19,20 and 21 December 2016 of a
number of complaints (including from myself) against UNISON.

The
complaints concern the Union’s election for its General Secretary in 2015. The
applicants allege that, during the election period, the Union breached a number
of its rules and a paragraph of the General Secretary 2015 Election Procedures
as well as section 49 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation)
Act 1992. This is the full hearing of the complaints following the preliminary
hearing held on 6 October 2016.

The
Certification Officer site states that; “hearings
are held in public (unless otherwise stated) and will commence at 10:00 am.
Anyone wishing to attend a hearing should telephone or email the Certification
Office (020 7210 3734 / info@certoffice.org) so that we may arrange for a
security access pass to be produced.”

If you are looking for relentlessly positive and upbeat
assessments of all aspects of trade union organisation you may be in the wrong
place. This blog has been a critical voice now for more than a decade.

For example, in February 2010 I published the farewell
messages from respected UNISON official Tom Snow to his
colleagues and to activists.
Tom didn’t pull his punches and I was pleased to publish his shrewd observations
that (in the Regional office); “There is
no esprit de corps. It is difficult to define what the Region has actually done
for UNISON members in London. It is little more than an office, a large one,
containing many highly committed people, all unable to escape a very tight
strait jacket. When branches have found ways to organise significant numbers of
new members, their activists have not been brought in to tell us how they did
it. That is a waste - symptomatic of managerial hubris and gross disrespect for
activists.”

A month or so later I was scathing
in my criticism of officials taking our Bromley and Greenwich branches into
regional supervision. This was just one example of my criticising UNISON for
the conduct of internal disciplinary matters – there were others.
And still
others. (and more…)

What I don’t quite understand is why my persistent
criticism of what I have perceived to be shortcomings in our trade union over
many years appears to have been tolerated in the past, it is only now that I am
party to a complaint to the Certification Officer that I find myself facing an
internal disciplinary investigation.

Solidarity to the Durham teaching assistants as they start
today their first two day strike. This is in opposition to an attempt to
drive down pay using the excuse of “equal pay” to impose cuts on a predominantly
low paid female workforce.

Let’s hope they don’t need to take more action to sway
their pay-cutting employers, who shame the Labour Party – but if they do we can
all donate to the hardship
fund.

This dispute highlights the dilemma of single status in
local government, both from the point of view of how it has localised pay
negotiations (so that people doing similar jobs in different localities can end
up earning very different rates of pay) and from the point of view of the way
in which (the least threat of) equal pay litigation can turn out to have
unforeseen and sometimes unwelcome consequences.

The Durham dispute, with its longer-running sister in Derby
around the same issue demonstrates that a serious threat really requires a
simple response – resistance.

When I
started this blog, a little over ten years ago, I explained
why I was doing so, and said; “ I
believe that this blog is entirely within UNISON Rules and I don’t intend to
carry any content which attacks our Union. This is not to say that I won’t
publish criticisms of policies or decisions with which I disagree (or
criticisms of me if anyone wants to post them!) This is in accordance with
UNISON Rule B.2.5 which commits the Union to encouraging democratic debate.”

In
more than two thousand posts over the past decade I have occasionally made good
on that promise, to the pleasure
of some readers. I have tried to engage in debate, often publishing critical
comments (even though these are generally anonymous) and have removed or
amended posts in response to criticism where I thought that warranted.

If you are
reading this blog and are offended, or feel that I have said something that is
unjust or incorrect you are welcome to respond and I will publish your response
as a comment (even if it is anonymous) as long as it is not itself unreasonably
offensive or defamatory.

However,
sometimes people may be upset when I publish comments which allege breaches of
UNISON Rules, or suggest that anything we have done falls short of excellence.
They may then pursue other remedies rather than make their criticisms in the
open.

For example;

On 1
December 2015 I alleged a breach of Rules D.8 and E.3.3 and of paragraph 7
of Schedule C to the Rule Book;

These particular posts have been the subject of criticism –
not in comments on this blog (which I would have published) but elsewhere (and
I really cannot
comment about where).

These criticisms were far from the least, or the least harsh,
which you can find if you go back over the past ten years of posts on this
blog. And yet it is these criticisms about which I am being questioned by the
trade union.

It is interesting that these questions (and the decision to
initiate a disciplinary investigation to which they have given rise) have
arisen since UNISON became aware of my complaint to the Certification Officer,
submitted on 27 April 2016 (after I was denied the opportunity to pursue issues
at the April meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC)).

Given that I have spent ten years being scathing online about
my criticisms of various actions (and omissions) by and on behalf of UNISON and
yet it is only now, after I have had recourse to the Certification Officer,
that I am being questioned about some recent (and less scathing) criticisms I
really hope not ever to have to rely upon my legal right not to be subject to unjustified
discipline by my trade union.

At a meeting
of UNISON activists in London last week I shared with colleagues my decision
not to seek an eighth term on UNISON’s National Executive Council (NEC) in the
next round of elections.

I was
pleased to learn that my friend and comrade, Sean Fox, the experienced and
committed Secretary of our campaigning
Haringey Branch, Vice-Chair of the Regional Local Government Committee and
London representative on the National Joint Council (NJC) Committee will seek
nominations for the seat I have held since 2003. Sean is an excellent
candidate, deserving of the support of all those who want an effective and
democratic trade union.

Should I see
out my current term of office I will have served fourteen years on the NEC (and
twenty one on the Regional Committee). It seems wrong to hog all that
entertainment to myself indefinitely! Having won seven consecutive elections to
the NEC in the Greater London Region (benefitting no doubt from the principled
stance of complete neutrality adopted by the office in every
election) I don’t think it is unreasonable for me to seek to have a little more
time to enjoy life beyond a UNISON meeting.

I started
this blog to report back as an NEC member but regular readers (Sid and
Doris Blogger) should not fear that I will fall silent. There are things which
I have been told
not talk about (and so, of course I will) and things about which I myself
have said I
won't blog about yet (but soon). Those misusing our trade union can rest
assured that they shall not escape comment and attention.